Homework Helpers Benefits Students and Tutors

Volunteers from St. John’s Episcopal Church have partnered with Banks-Caddell Elementary School to help students after school with their homework through a program suitably named Homework Helpers.

St. John’s, Village Faith Church, Rotary Club, and Christmas Tours of Old Decatur and Albany support the program. The funding provides teachers to oversee the program,snacks for the students, and transportation home for the children.

This is the third full year Homework Helpers has been operating at Banks-Caddell. The first year was an experimental six-week program.

A pool of 28 volunteers tutor students 3 afternoons each week beginning in September and ending in mid April. St. John’s volunteers include retirees, full-time employees, and high school students.

Principal Linda McLain says, “Students benefit from the partnership because they get extra help on their homework, even if it’s not complete they get a good start on it. Plus, they have mentors in the program and that’s good emotional support.”

Martha Freeman, St. John’s coordinator of the program says, “A little boy told me the best thing about this program is he doesn’t have to go to school worried about not having his homework. With this partnership students grades come up, skills come up. They have got to get to middle school believing they can handle the work load.”

The program is available to 25 children. The principal and teachers assess students and decide who is eligible for the program.

The mission of the Decatur City Schools Foundation is to enhance excellence in education for all students in Decatur City Schools. To learn more about Homework Helpers, contact the Decatur City Schools Foundation at (256) 616-1734.

Comments

Funding from 3M Keeps the Wheels Turning for Career Tech STEM Initiatives

3M has awarded a grant to Decatur City Schools Foundation that will provide resources for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education f ocused on career- and college-readiness for more than 500, 6th– 12th-grade students. The Foundation is committed to working with Decatur City Schools to ensure that students graduate ready to enter the workforce or continue their education. In August, Decatur City Schools combined the Career Technical Education (CTE) efforts of Austin and Decatur High Schools at one center on a portion of the campus previously occupied by Austin High. The center is known as The Career Academies of Decatur. The center provides students the opportunity to explore the type of career or secondary education that they may want to pursue through the use of CTE pathways. STEM career pathways, such as Engineering and Machine Tool Technology, are popular with area students. Introducing students to a variety of career pathways beginning ...

Representative Collins Provides Community Grant Education Funding for ACT Prep

This Fall, Decatur’s high schools started their second year using John Baylor Test Prep to help students get ready to take the ACT. For the past three years, every 11 th -grade student in the state of Alabama has taken the ACT as a way to measure the effectiveness of education among the state’s school districts. While the test for standards is changing this year, the ACT remains an important exam for many students in our district. Often a student’s ACT score determines whether or not the student is eligible to attend the university of their choice. After acceptance, their score will help the scholarship office decide whether or not to grant the student scholarship money to attend. With the high cost of attendance for both two- and four-year institutions, scholarship money can be the deciding factor in whether a student will seek post-secondary education. John Baylor Test Prep provides students with online access to test-prep sessions for the ACT, Pre-SAT, and SAT—all of whi...

The Cure to "Worksheetitis" Teaches Kids Computer Science

Are your students suffering from Worksheetitis? Tired of learning their lessons through written work alone? Luckily, our elementary teachers learned the cure, and thanks to some help from Representative Terri Collins, they’ll be getting the tools to cure it in their classrooms soon. The Technology Department of Decatur City Schools hosted Professional Development for all DCS elementary teachers last month. The gym at Oak Park Elementary School became an escape room, where all of the teachers worked through stations to collect items they would need to escape. To complete each station, though, they had to learn some new things. At each one, they found a new tool or game related to coding, computer science, and technology. From simple tools like Coding Hopscotch that teaches sequencing, to Augmented Reality Cubes that let the user hold our Solar System in the palm of their hand to discover new facts about the planets, our teachers were able to see a wide variety of new wa...

Decatur City Schools Foundation

Search This Blog